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Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 71 2021

Religiosity and risk taking: Is there a demand-side effect?

Thomas R. Berry-Stölzle; Steven Irlbeck1

1 University of New Hampshire

Abstract

Religiosity may impact firm risk taking via its risk averse employees or through risk-sensitive demand. Using detailed financial statements of property-liability insurance companies, we find that both religiosity at firms' headquarters and the religiosity of firms' largest geographic market are negatively related to firm risk taking. For firms with one salient market, the impact of market religiosity is approximately the same order of magnitude as headquarter religiosity. Our evidence suggests that firm risk taking is influenced by customer demand.

DOI
10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2021.102117
Volume
71
Pages
102117
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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